


Rush

by Nununununu



Category: His Dark Materials (TV)
Genre: (A bit of these), (not between main characters), Aftermath of Violence, Bloody Kisses, Danger Kink, Don't copy to another site, Enthusiastic Consent, Explicit Sexual Content, Feelings, First Time, Kissing, M/M, Oral Sex, Size Difference, Trust Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-21
Updated: 2020-02-21
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:07:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22609042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nununununu/pseuds/Nununununu
Summary: A less than welcoming encounter in a town Lee, Hester and Iorek have newly arrived in has an unexpected result.
Relationships: Iorek Byrnison/Lee Scoresby
Comments: 8
Kudos: 48
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 5





	Rush

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DoreyG](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoreyG/gifts).



> Mild tw for non-detailed references to mostly off-screen prejudice towards MCs and panserbjørne in general, non-graphic violence and minor mentions of blood. Canon divergent; not set at any fixed point.
> 
> For DoreyG. Thanks for the fantastic prompts! :)
> 
> (Date changed to match author reveals; orig posted 14/02)

It’s been a while since he’s been in a fight he felt so strongly about.

Lee’s breathing hard, his knuckles bruised and starting to swell, a smudge of blood on his jaw and more darkening his gums, his lips split against his teeth when one of his opponents got in a punch. Hester’s leaning against his right ankle, getting her breath back, having held her own during the brawl and given no fewer than five different daemons a good kick whenever she got the chance.

Said daemons’ humans are decorating the floor currently, groaning bodies curled around their hurts. There are the remains of a couple of chairs and a small table scattered around them, along with a reasonable amount of crockery and broken bottles – seeking to properly express his displeasure, Lee had gotten fairly creative come the end.

The ringleader curses and groans, hunched on the floor next to Lee’s left boot. Lee nudges the man’s shoulder with his toe and flips him over, leaning down a bit to ensure he’s got his attention.

“So just to make sure we’re all on the same page, none of you are about to start spouting off nonsense and slander like that again, correct?” he asks with a glance to the others to make sure they’re listening similarly.

“Y-yeah, we’ve got it,” the ringleader’s voice is thick with resentment, his gull daemon watching them warily from the bar top, nursing its injured wing, “It’s obvious you and the bear are –”

“You _heard_ what I just said, right? I’d recommend you stop talking right there,” Straightening up, Lee cautions, his voice light to cover a fresh swell of anger and, wisely choosing not to raise his voice any further, the ringleader grumbles sullenly into the floorboards.

“Time to go, Lee,” Hester advises from where she’s hopped over to a window, peering down the street outside.

“Looks like it,” Although the payment is a tempting weight in his pocket, Lee’s already mentally said farewell to any thoughts of a hot dinner, having been planning all along to sleep in the gondola of the balloon.

They can move on somewhere else, if Iorek’s amenable, and _then_ sleep. The sooner they see the back of this place, the better.

Brushing his hands off on his coat, Lee steps over the ringleader and heads for the doorway, Hester joining him as he plucks his hat off the coat stand, rotating his stiffening shoulders a bit before pushing open the double doors. He’ll have bruises come the morrow, but adrenaline is still coursing fierce enough through him that he doesn’t really feel the aches now.

Down the grey windswept, snow-speckled street, their balloon is ready and waiting in the town square, complete with the cargo they’d loaded onto it earlier, and Iorek standing before it as if on guard.

And around a dozen bodies also occupying the square, groaning in various positions not unlike those Lee had left in the bar.

“I see we’re not the only ones who’ve been having fun,” Lee raises his voice to call to him once they’re getting close. Iorek lets go of the collar of the man he’s shaking – in a way that would seem surprisingly restrained to one unaware of how thoroughly the panserbjørn is capable of controlling his strength.

It’s still enough to send the man sprawling in the snow, Iorek dropping him unceremoniously in favour of glancing up at their approach.

“Lee, Hester,” Unlike Lee, he’s showing no signs of exertion aside from his sides moving a touch harder than usual with each indrawn breath, dark eyes passing from human to daemon, clearly assessing, “You are unharmed?”

“Right as rain, the both of us,” Lee claims and, because he’s not about to presume, “And you?”

“I’ve taken on many a more formidable foe without wearing my armour,” Iorek snorts, which isn’t really an answer. He must catch something in Lee’s expression, because he softens slightly, “I am well. More so than yourself.”

“Let’s just get going, shall we?” Hester’s feeling as het up and antsy as Lee is, bounding ahead of them into the gondola, “You can compare war wounds later.”

“You don’t object to us cutting our visit short?” Lee lifts an eyebrow at Iorek in question, waiting for his assent before gesturing for his friend to precede him, shooting another look around the square, “Looks like you did some fine work, Iorek.”

“It was regrettably necessary,” Iorek’s not one to accept compliments when he feels they’re not due, “As it so often is with humans.”

“I hope you’re not counting me in with that statement,” Lee simply has to comment as he starts to prepare the balloon, Hester poking a lever or two.

“Hm?” Iorek’s flown with them enough times by now that he’s taken to doing his part in readying them for lift off, checking machinery Lee has adapted for a panserbjørn’s talented forepaws and opposable thumbs. “I wouldn’t say that you are regrettably necessary, Lee.”

“Why thank you kindly –” Lee starts to reply, touched.

Iorek finishes, “Although sometimes you are necessarily regrettable.”

“He’s got you, Lee,” Hester nearly headbutts the gauge she’s checking, she bursts into laughter so hard.

“You –” Lee splutters, caught off guard by the entirely unexpected teasing, his mouth trying to curve traitorously upwards despite his best attempt to scowl, “I’ll have you both know I’ve never been ‘regrettable’ a day in my life!”

“Oh, I can list a fair number of times without even trying,” Chortling, Hester leaps down onto the floor of the gondola to tuck herself into a round ball of not-rabbit, leaning in unabashed approval right against one of Iorek’s great paws. He chuffs, glancing down at her before settling, seemingly content to let her stay.

The shared sensation of the contact is so world-shaking, Lee fumbles the take-off sequence worse than he ever has, his insides feeling like they’re abruptly freefalling – but not downwards, instead like gravity’s been inverted and they’re shooting up into the sky.

-*-

They get the balloon aloft thankfully without further mishap, once Lee’s had a stern talking to himself and got his head screwed at least somewhere approaching back on.

He’s still wound up from the fight, dang it, and from the witnessed aftermath of _Iorek’s_ fight, and can’t deny the regret that he didn’t get to witness the latter.

“So what were your lot after, anyway?” he enquires, thinking it might serve to channel a portion of the restless energy burning up inside him by at least talking about it, unable to imagine the wizened but serviceable vegetables and assorted dry goods they’re transporting to a couple of islands over had seemed worth the effort of any town citizen seeking to pilfer, let alone getting into a tussle with a panserbjørn. Perching on an upturned crate but immediately deciding he doesn’t like the position, Lee props a boot up on another, “I’m guessing they were just choosing to make damn fools of themselves.”

“Ants in your pants, Lee,” Hester comments from where she’s still at Iorek’s side, drawing Lee’s attention to the fact he’s tapping his toes, knee jiggling. Grimacing faintly, he attempts to stop, fiddling with his pocketknife instead.

“They took objection to our presence, yes,” Iorek confirms, lifting his head off his forepaws to sniff at Lee’s fingers, “I gather those you bruised your knuckles on did the same.”

“Mine did a little bit more than that,” Lee transfers the pocketknife into his other hand, tucks it back safe into his coat, and pretends his attention isn’t abruptly on the cool damp nose now skimming his knuckles. His heart, already beating faster than normal, kicks up another notch. “Thought they’d spend some time running their mouths off about stuff they knew nothing about.”

He shakes his head, not about to repeat any of the slurs.

“They assumed you have some hold over me,” Iorek translates, and he’s not wrong, damn it.

“Perhaps they assumed _you_ have some hold over _me_ ,” Lee grumbles, shifting his ass on his crate before confessing, “A combination of both, really. Couple of them seemed real eager to run a number of theories by me as to our reason for travelling together, while their friends added suggestions.” He glances at Iorek almost despite himself, taking in the calm dark eyes, the scars on that familiar nose. The urge to touch him is almost overwhelming, although he’s not about to while telling such a tale – or while he doesn’t know if it’d be welcome. “I resented the implications.”

In honesty it had descended into downright imprecations regardless of Lee’s initial endeavour to deescalate, at which point he’d quit attempting to play peacemaker and introduced his fist to the ringleader’s nose.

“Come here,” Iorek says now, seemingly apropos of nothing, and huffs in what could be mild exasperation or amusement when Lee blinks at him, “You’re fretting.”

“I'm not ‘fretting’,” Lee simply has to object, even though he’s back to bouncing his knee – damn it – and has apparently been plucking at a button without realising, until the loop of thread holding it onto his coat has almost frayed, “That is –”

“Just do as he says, Lee,” Hester puts in, and so Lee shunts himself off his crate, landing next to the pair of them with his own huff, as if this isn’t what he’s been wanting to do all along.

“Fine, fine, gang up on me why don’t you.”

“Necessarily regrettable,” Iorek comments with a touch of definite amusement – and affection, too – colouring his voice, and shifts his body to curve around Lee.

“ _U-uh_ –” Abruptly surrounded by soft white fur and warm firm flesh, Lee’s back jolts ramrod stiff, his shoulders rising up towards his ears. His blood pumping so hard the whoosh of it is all he can hear.

It’s not the first time they’ve touched. But it is the first time they’ve touched so very _much_ , all down Lee’s arms and back, and that Iorek’s initiated it – before it’s always been Lee offering a pat to an armoured shoulder or, once, a rub to the nose that made his fingers tingle for what felt like hours afterwards.

“This was not the intended effect,” He makes out Iorek remarking after a moment, “The idea was that the reminder we both escaped an unpleasant encounter more or less unscathed would help you to relax.”

“Hey now, I’m the very definition of relaxed,” Tipping the brim of his hat in thanks, Lee drags a shallow breath in before ordering his body to match the claim, going so far as to let some of his weight lean against the welcome mass of panserbjørn.

He longs to lean into Iorek properly; to collapse against him. Catching Hester’s eye for a second, he finds her sitting up on her haunches, watching intently, and knows for a fact she's on board.

“You’re really not, Lee,” She’s also always got to call him out.

“You’re not helping, you know,” Lee mutters back.

“Perhaps cleaning yourself of the signs of battle might aid relaxation,” is Iorek’s own idea of a helpful suggestion.

“You saying I’m ripe?” Teasing, Lee half turns to quirk an eyebrow at his friend, vaguely thinking about digging out a handkerchief and giving his face a spit-and-polish wash seeing as he’s not at all inclined to move any further than that.

“Simply that you are bloodied as well as bruised,” Iorek replies reasonably. He pauses, not quite long enough for it to be out of hesitation, “If you will permit me –”

And then he does something totally unexpected: pushing up on his forepaws, easing away from Lee just enough that he can lean his head in close. A broad, warm tongue swipes over Lee’s jaw, catching on his day’s worth of stubble, cleaning up the smear of dried blood.

“ _I-Iorek_ –” Lee’s breath catches so hard he chokes, hands flying up without thinking, grasping at handfuls of thick fur, “What –”

“What do you mean ‘what’?” Hester is hissing urgently, next to him all of a sudden, her little forepaws a grounding pressure on his knee, “Lee, don’t be dumb –”

Lee feels dumb – _struck_ dumb, more like; hardly daring to react as Iorek licks him again, over his cheek this time, although Lee’s relatively certain there aren’t any drops of blood speckled there.

“You taste good, my friend,” Iorek rumbles right against him, the feeling of it shooting straight through Lee to pool in his crotch, “Does there need to be any more reason than that?”

“No, not at all,” Lee is quick to shake himself back into gear, fingers digging in that little deeper, revelling in the warmth and strength and presence of his friend, thrilled when Iorek presses into the touch, “In fact, that sounds a mighty fine way to relax.”

“You have been bleeding here as well,” Iorek’s tongue finds the corner of his mouth, the split in Lee’s lip, and something in Lee snaps.

“ _Ah_ –” He can’t hold back any longer, pushing his mouth up at his friend’s, kissing even as Iorek licks, messy kisses, messy licks, laughter and need and all the leftover energy from the fight bubbling up inside him, magnifying, swelling until it feels like he’s swallowed the sun. Their mouths don’t match and nor do their teeth, Lee’s lip threatening to tear open again as it catches on a great canine, his hat tumbling off unnoticed to land who knows where, and it’s wonderful – _wonderful_ –

“ _I-Iorek – oh –”_ He’s being far too noisy, far too desperate; wants to fumble his coat and waistcoat and shirt off, wants to fall back onto the floor of the gondola and drag Iorek on top of him, wants that huge powerful body over his, wants to make his friend come undone.

“ _Lee_ –” Iorek doesn’t sound like he’s faring much better in honesty, which is a relief given Lee can hardly hold himself back at all, already obliged to worm a hand down between them so he can shove his palm at his cock, surging painfully hard against the fastening of his trousers despite the quelling touch. The attempt at controlling himself is more or less doomed to failure, for he hears Hester saying something, marvelling at the precision with which Iorek rests his weight on an elbow and cradles Lee’s head in one massive paw.

“ _Iorek_ –” She's sounding wound up herself, and Lee’s not heard that before, hasn’t felt her take an interest in anything he's done sex-related in the past, and the knowledge of her approval makes him moan.

The sheer size and breadth of Iorek’s paw makes him moan all the harder, the panserbjørn’s opposable thumb tracing his cheekbone.

It’s a paw Lee has seen knock a reindeer clear off its feet with no effort, seen it scoop seals out of the water like they were little tiddlers, seen it lift and rend and crush. He’s seen Iorek send men bigger and heavier than himself tumbling like insects with this very paw, and the thought of it compared to the tenderness with which his friend touches him now makes Lee tremble and fling his other arm up to cling to Iorek fiercely.

“Those – those damn filthy things those darn fools were saying,” he finds himself panting as Iorek’s clever tongue investigates his ear and the arch of his neck, “They were so – so convinced it'd be shameful, but I’d let you do all of them, Iorek, every one, and take pleasure in it.”

“It seems to me that perhaps we could come up with something even better ourselves,” is Iorek’s response and, as proposals go, this one is grand.

“I have an idea,” Lee, in fact, has _many,_ although unfortunately no few of them would be wise to try when they're not afloat. He manages to peel his hand away from his crotch to reach up to bury it in Iorek’s ruff, his brain completely derailed when Iorek instead bows his head to snuffle at Lee’s palm, which must be thick with the scent of his arousal.

“I would like to hear it,” Iorek licks over the lines there, the base of Lee’s thumb, the calluses from holding his rifle. Licks Lee’s wrist, nose brushing over the pulse point until Lee’s not able to take it any more and has to kiss him again: that broad muzzle, the adorable shape of his nose.

“I want –” He starts and has to pause, because even just the thought of it threatens to undo him, “I want you in my mouth.”

As much of his friend in his mouth as he can.

“Good going, Lee!” Hester is hopping about encouragingly, never far from them, bounding close for a moment to prop her paws on Iorek’s back or press against his side or to nudge Lee’s hand into an even better location with the top of her head, before leaping away again, unable to contain herself either.

“Thanks,” Lee can only laugh. Iorek’s laughing a little likewise, that wonderful rumble that both sets Lee's blood further on fire in his veins and makes his heart feel like it expands.

“I can only agree, as long as you will permit me to return the favour,” Iorek consents, and Lee would be embarrassed at the sound of eager glee he makes in response, but he’s too busy burrowing in against his friend as Iorek moves onto his side to accommodate him, stroking the amazingly soft fur on the polar bear’s belly, investigating the noises he can get out of him, glorying in the discovery of his friend’s cock.

He’s imagined – there’s little point in denying it now – he’s thought about it, sure. But the reality of it is bigger, harder, _better_ than anything his half guilty fantasies managed to conjure up, never feeling quite comfortable picturing too much of anything happening between them even in his thoughts, given he’d had no idea how Iorek would react.

“Lee – _Lee_ –”

He’d had no idea Iorek would be almost trembling against him, paws stirring restlessly, body straining, clearly holding himself back – and Lee badly doesn’t _want_ him to hold back, although he knows how risky that would be, especially given their current location. It just makes him open his mouth wider, work his lips around what portion of Iorek he can fit in, running his hands down the rest of his shaft to make up for what he cannot. Relishing the strain in his jaw, the feel of saliva slicking his lips, the scent and taste and heaviness on his tongue.

“That is – Lee, you are – I have never –” Iorek is sounding close to broken when Lee sucks at him, want and need clearer than he ever dared dream he’d hear in his friend’s voice, and so Lee redoubles his efforts, moaning, startled when Iorek suddenly shakes himself and tugs back, the tip of his cock sliding out of Lee’s mouth with a pop.

“Lee,” he’s saying shakily, “Lee, I _cannot_ –” and Lee doesn’t have to ask what he can’t, because he knows full well Iorek is afraid of hurting him, of losing control on letting go.

His mouth aches with the loss of him.

“Hey, it’s all right,” he finds speech after a moment even so, wriggling after him, unwilling to let him get far at all, “We can do something else if you prefer; _anything_ –” He can’t hide his own urgency or desperation, “We can –”

“ _This_ ,” Iorek is apparently unable to wait any longer, dexterous paws gone clumsy as he struggles with Lee’s clothes. Lee is equally clumsy as he helps him, shucking off his coat and shirt and peeling off his trousers, utterly unable to keep himself from crying out at the feel of fur against the length of his naked body, heels pressing against the floor of the gondola, thrusting up hard.

“ _This_ , Lee,” Iorek manages to line them up, and it’s not neat and tidy, it’s not eye to eye or cheek to cheek or anything else it would be with another human – or another polar bear – but it’s excellent, it’s _everything_ –

“ _Yes – Yes, Iorek –!_ ” and Lee’s nearly sobbing, his whole body shaking longer and harder than it ever has as he spills over at the feel of Iorek rutting against him, rutting back up at him frantically, gasping encouragement. Everything bright and hot and indescribably incredible, and he might just be yelling now, an unexpected final burst of orgasm juddering out of him as he feels Iorek reach his completion as well.

Lee is wholly incapable of doing anything else afterwards for a long old while, not even up to reaching for his canteen or offering Iorek the bucket of water he keeps a plank and a brick over, so it doesn’t spill. All the leftover adrenaline and agitation from the brawl has drained out of him, all the tension and tiredness he was carrying generally besides. He hasn’t been so relaxed in –

Well, ever. And that’s speaking as one who’s made a study of it in the past.

“Hmm,” Judging by the satisfaction clear in Iorek’s purring yawn and the way he nuzzles into the crook of Lee’s shoulder, he’s not at all bothered by Lee’s inability – and unwillingness – to move.

“All right, come on now, up you get,” Hester, however, gets on Lee’s case after noticeably allowing him far longer than she has with anyone else, “We’ve had fun – yes, _lots_ of fun; I saw those faces you were making, Lee – but now everyone needs to be fed and watered, and you’ve got a balloon that’s wandered _really_ off course.”

“You're right, Hester, I wouldn't want to be forgetting my manners now, would I.” Or letting the balloon get too far adrift.

As loath as Lee is to part from Iorek, it's really sort of wonderful in itself simply to be easing himself out from under his friend, feeling all that fur tickling against his oversensitive flesh. The equally appreciative noise Iorek makes in response gives him the impression round two might end up in the pipeline anyway, and hopefully not too long in the coming.

He gets them fed and watered and back on course, and –

Iorek noses against him, “I do believe there's a favour I would very much like to return.”

And round two? Yeah, Lee's not wrong.


End file.
